


Start how you mean to finish

by itsnotlove



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First War with Voldemort, M/M, Peter invited the wrong person to the party in his pants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 07:40:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsnotlove/pseuds/itsnotlove
Summary: Peter, no.





	Start how you mean to finish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shoestringheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoestringheart/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Ali! I love you so much!
> 
> This is a fanfic for your Party fanfic, sort of set ahead of what happened in yours. I hope it's okay (and that I did Peter justice (even though he doesn't deserve it lbr)).

There were many times Peter’s mother had given him advice. Such advice ranged from how long it took to boil the perfect egg, to how he should use hospital corners when he made the bed so his feet wouldn’t fall out (but his mother had never understood how he hated to feel trapped, even in blankets, so he’d untuck them before he went to sleep anyway—something she didn’t need to know). Sometimes, her advice was something she’d only say once—like she thought Peter would remember, and he would because it was his mother and his mother only ever wanted the best for him—or sometimes she’d repeat it over and over.

   That advice, Peter found, was more difficult to follow. It would rattle around the back of his head, popping up whenever it was relevant only for him to brush it aside. Such a habit had made him wonder whether was something wrong with him. It should have been as easy to follow advice he knew by heart as it was to follow that which he remembered vaguely. 

   His mother was a strong woman—someone he’d been proud to boast about to his friends, who would laugh with Mrs. Potter in the kitchen and made jokes with Mr. Lupin at Kings Cross—and Peter knew she wouldn’t lie to him. More than that, he knew she wasn’t wrong in what she told him, and he really should pay more attention.

   Broken, then.

   Peter had examined the conclusion, pretended he believed it, then moved on with his life. If he had known this was the start that put him on a path to how things would finish, then he liked to think he’d have made a different decision. But then, Peter had always been very good at lying to himself.

 

* * *

 

 

The biggest difference between the Order and Death Eaters—aside from their philosophies, their beliefs, and what they were willing to fight for and over—was how they gathered. The Order had always tried to make meeting places warm and inviting (something Peter hadn’t understood, since its location would be leaked in a week anyway and then it would be nothing more than rubble and limbs and vomit, and it wasn’t even  _ him  _ who’d leaked it this time (there were spies everywhere, and Peter couldn’t be sure he even was one half the time, or if it had been his information that had gotten the McKinnon’s killed, or was it the Prewett’s? There were spies everywhere and it wasn’t his fault)), whereas Death Eaters made an effort to do the opposite.

   They met in rooms that looked abandoned. Rooms that were full of dust and webs, but seemed sterile nonetheless. Rooms that felt like how Sirius and James used to look when they were still fun, right before they’d pounce on someone weak and show them how very strong they were. They didn’t get like that now, mind. It had been years since James and Sirius had shown how strong they were, or let Peter think he was strong, too. They’d all changed, all grown up, all left, grown—

   The rooms were always cold and uninviting, and while it was all very fitting, Peter didn’t know why they couldn’t light a fire or change the colour of the drapes. He felt more out of place in the dark than he did in the light, with fewer places to hide when his weren’t the only eyes that had adjusted.

   Was it any surprise he’d been drawn to the light? It wasn’t the same light as his friends—his best friends; even though he was hurting them, giving them up, betraying them—but just as wild. 

   James and Sirius were wildfires who had been domesticated. They sat behind the grill of a fireplace, listening to Remus and all his caution and good sense, and oh, did his advice mix with Peter’s mother’s. 

   But this light was dangerous. It couldn’t be controlled or tamed, and licked walls and ceilings and maybe it would try Peter’s neck—just along his jaw—and sometimes he thought it would burn him alive. Sometimes, Peter wanted it to. Peter wanted to be consumed, to be hidden in a light so bright no one could see him, and to feel the safety in its anonymity.

   The worst part of it was also the best part, and what sort of fucked up person did that make Peter? 

   Barty knew.

   They hadn’t spoken to each other, hadn’t shared anything more than a glance, but Barty knew. He knew how Peter wanted to be eaten, to be charred by his touch and scarred in places he never knew existed. He knew why Peter wouldn’t look at him directly—too bright, too hot, too much—and even though Peter really  _ wasn’t  _ looking, he could see Barty’s feral grin which looked so much like James’. 

   It said something, Peter thought, that he could be seen by such dangerous and superior people. That they would be attracted to him, drawn to him, and he could wrap himself in their chaos.

   Peter knew that following him would be an awful idea. Nothing but debris would be left behind and the air would be sucked from his lungs. He would be swallowed over and over, lost to himself forever, and he would never be able to change his mind. There would be no redemption, no sympathy waiting for him. 

   But Barty had seen him—seen through him—and Peter had already made his decision. He followed the light as it left the room as helplessly and obviously as a moth following a flame, hoping to bask in that heat until it set him on fire.


End file.
